Let’s talk about something that affects all of us in Croton, even if we don’t always want to look at it directly. For local event listings, for knowing when the library has a book sale or when the school board is meeting, Maria Cudequest’s EverythingCroton blog has been a handy resource. It fills a gap, and people appreciate the convenience. But convenience doesn’t equal reliability, especially when it comes to health. Over and over again, the same blog has drifted into dangerous territory, offering what can only be described as a toxic mix of ignorance and bias, particularly on vaccines and infectious diseases. This isn’t a small matter. Croton is home to a lot of families with young children and a lot of older residents, and both groups are especially vulnerable to illnesses that vaccines can prevent or at least soften. When a local voice spreads misinformation about those illnesses, it’s not just an abstract intellectual debate. It’s a threat to actual people in our community. That’s why it’s worth taking the time to look at what happened most recently and to set the record straight in a calm, clear, and human way.
The latest example came after Governor Kathy Hochul declared a statewide state of emergency because measles cases are spiking across New York, especially in rural areas. This is a serious moment, and public health officials are worried for good reason. But the EverythingCroton blog responded by using an AI search to point out that New York has seen bigger measles outbreaks before, including the 2018–2019 outbreak that eventually reached more than a thousand cases statewide, and that at the time, Governor Andrew Cuomo did not declare a statewide emergency. The implication is obvious: Hochul is overreacting, the danger is exaggerated, and we can all just shrug and move on. But that argument, presented as if it were a gotcha, misses almost everything that matters. AI searches can be useful, sure, but only if the person using them knows what they’re doing, asks the right questions, checks the original sources, and understands the context. Cudequest, unfortunately, used the search to confirm what she already wanted to believe. The 2018–2019 outbreak that she mentioned is not evidence that Hochul is overreacting; it’s actually evidence of how serious measles can become. That outbreak hit New York City especially hard, and it was the largest outbreak there in nearly three decades. It was closely tied to under-vaccination, and it prompted then-Mayor Bill de Blasio to declare a public health emergency in the city. And while Cuomo didn’t declare a statewide emergency, he did sign a statewide law removing religious exemptions for vaccination. In other words, officials treated that outbreak as a wake-up call, not as a reason to dismiss measles as harmless.
So why declare an emergency now with “only” 108 cases? Because public health isn’t about the number at any single moment. It’s about the direction things are heading and how fast. And the numbers right now are pointing in a very dangerous direction. Of those 108 cases in New York State, 92 were reported after July 15. That means the virus isn’t stable; it’s accelerating. It’s spreading quickly through counties where vaccination rates have fallen below the level needed to protect the community. Measles is one of the most contagious viruses known to humanity. It can hang in the air for up to two hours after an infected person leaves a room. It doesn’t care about county lines or state borders. An outbreak in rural New York can quickly become an outbreak in a town like ours, especially if people are traveling for work, school, or leisure. And let’s not forget the situation in neighboring Pennsylvania, where measles has also been spreading. Hochul’s emergency declaration is not a political stunt. It’s a practical, proactive move that gives state and local officials more flexibility to mobilize vaccination clinics, coordinate with schools and healthcare providers, and make sure communities are prepared before the virus takes off. Waiting until there are hundreds of cases in New York would be like waiting until a house is fully engulfed in flames to call the fire department. The whole point is to act before the fire spreads.
Now, let’s talk about the disease itself, because the blog’s pattern has been to downplay measles as if it’s just a rash and a fever that everyone gets and gets over. That is not true, and it’s dangerous to pretend otherwise. Measles can be brutal. Governor Hochul’s emergency order, based on solid scientific evidence, lays out the risks clearly: about one in every twenty children who get measles will develop pneumonia. About one in every thousand will develop encephalitis, a swelling of the brain that can lead to permanent brain damage. And one to three out of every thousand children who get infected will die from it. That’s not fear-mongering; that’s medical reality. There are also longer-term complications that most people don’t even know about. Measles causes something called immune amnesia, which means it wipes out the immune system’s memory of other diseases the person was previously protected against, leaving them more vulnerable to other infections for months or even years. And there is subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, a rare but devastating condition that can appear years after a measles infection and slowly destroy the central nervous system until the person dies. These are not scare stories. These are facts that public health experts have known for decades, and they are the reason vaccination programs have saved countless lives. The measles vaccine is safe, effective, and widely available. It does not cause autism. It does not overload the immune system. It protects both the person who gets vaccinated and the people around them who can’t be vaccinated, such as infants too young to receive the shot, people with certain medical conditions, and pregnant women. Choosing not to vaccinate a healthy child against measles is like choosing not to buckle their seatbelt because you haven’t personally been in a crash. It’s not courage; it’s recklessness, and it puts everyone else on the road at risk too.
It’s also important to understand how disinformation works, because it doesn’t always look like lies. It often looks like facts carefully arranged to push a preexisting belief. That’s exactly what the EverythingCroton blog did with the AI search. It found a real historical detail—that Cuomo didn’t declare a statewide emergency in 2018–2019—and presented it as if it settled the question. But facts without context are not truth. The reason there was no statewide emergency then is that the severity of the resurgence wasn’t yet fully understood, and officials were responding to a different stage of the problem. Today, the national picture is far worse. Measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000, meaning it was no longer constantly present, although it could still be brought in from other countries. But in the last two years, the United States has reported more measles cases than in all the years from 2000 to 2024 combined. That is a shocking sentence. It should stop anyone in their tracks. The disease that was supposed to be gone from our country is back, and it’s returning precisely because vaccination rates have dipped. The 2018–2019 outbreak in New York was an early warning sign, and public health officials took it seriously. Now, with multiple outbreaks spreading in rural counties with relatively low vaccination rates, and with a major outbreak next door in Pennsylvania, the state of emergency is not an overreaction. It’s a lesson learned. It’s a decision to act on evidence instead of waiting for worse. Cudequest’s comparison ignores all of that, and it fits a broader pattern in her posts, where she has previously tried to downplay measles outbreaks in Pennsylvania and has repeatedly cast doubt on vaccines. That’s not journalism. That’s an agenda.
In the end, Maria Cudequest has every legal right to publish whatever she wants on her blog. The First Amendment protects speech that is misleading, incorrect, and even harmful. That’s part of living in a free country, and no one is seriously suggesting she should be silenced. But rights come with responsibilities, and the rest of us have just as much of a right, and arguably a civic duty, to speak up when someone in our community is spreading dangerous misinformation. This is especially true when the misinformation involves health issues and the speaker has no medical expertise. EverythingCroton may be a useful calendar for community events, and that’s fine. But when it pivots to infectious diseases and vaccines, it crosses a line. The article it published on the measles emergency was not a good-faith effort to inform the public. It was an ideologically driven attempt to undermine trust in public health authorities and to make people think that protecting our children is somehow optional or even harmful. That worldview is not only wrong; it’s dangerous. We cannot let it stand unchallenged. We need to talk to our neighbors, share accurate information, support our local health officials, and continue to make sure that everyone in Croton has access to the facts and the resources they need. Whether it’s the parents of a newborn, the grandparents who worry about their grandchildren, or the young adults who think they don’t need a shot, we’re all in this together. Vaccination is one of the greatest public health achievements in human history, and it only works when enough of us participate. The best response to ignorance and bigotry is not silence or anger. It’s clarity, compassion, and the courage to stand up for each other, especially for the most vulnerable among us. So let’s keep enjoying our community events, but let’s also remember that health matters more than convenience, and that sometimes the kindest thing we can do is to speak the truth, gently but firmly, even when it’s uncomfortable.